Jindal leads Louisiana governor's race

[harjit]

I wonder if black voters are going to see him as one of them, or as "The Man".

Jindal leads Louisiana governor's race
By Russell McCulley

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Republican Bobby Jindal holds a commanding lead in the Louisiana governor's race heading into the October 20 primary, close to the 50 percent majority needed for an outright win, two polls showed.

Turnout among black voters, who traditionally vote Democratic and make up about 30 percent of the electorate, will likely determine if Jindal, a second-term congressman, is elected outright or forced into a runoff, said Louisiana political analyst Elliott Stonecipher.

"Either African-American turnout has been terribly depleted by the storms or African-American turnout is actually going to hold up, in which case he's in a runoff."

In Louisiana's open primary system, candidates from all parties compete in the primary. If no candidate receives more than half the votes, the top two contenders meet in a runoff.

Both polls released this week showed about one in four voters undecided or keeping their choices to themselves. Tens of thousands of voters are still displaced two years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the state.

Jindal, 36, a conservative Republican, hopes to replace Democrat Kathleen Blanco, who is not seeking a second term. If elected, Jindal would be the first U.S. governor descended from Indian immigrants.

Blanco narrowly defeated Jindal in a runoff four years ago, but her approval ratings plummeted after Katrina and Rita in 2005.

Polls conducted this month by Southeastern Louisiana University and New Orleans television station WWL-TV showed Jindal at or just short of the 50 percent he needs to avoid a November 17 runoff.

The WWL-TV poll of 500 registered voters released on Thursday showed Jindal leading with 50 percent and the nearest of three top rivals, Democratic state Sen. Walter Boasso, at 9 percent, while 22 percent of voters declined to indicate a choice. It had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.

In the Southeastern poll of 641 registered voters released earlier this week, Jindal led with 46.2 percent, while Boasso was at 10.1 percent and 28.9 percent of respondents were undecided or refused to say for whom they would vote. The margin of error was 4 percentage points.

http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN1142955320071012

[Jake Featherston]

I wonder if black voters are going to see him as one of them, or as "The Man".

He's the Republican nominee, so won't do well among the Black voters, almost assuredly. Mike Huckabee got 48% of the Black vote as the Republican nominee for Governor of Arkansas (albeit in a re-election battle he won with like 70% of the total vote), but that sort of thing is very rare in the USA. Jindal will probably get about 20% of the Black vote, maybe less.

If Gov. Blanco were seeking a second term, however, then Jindal might have had a chance to make a break-through with Black voters unhappy about the state of Louisiana's incompetent response to the Katrina situation (as well as the pre-Katrina levee situation), but animosity towards Ms. Blanco won't extend to her Democratic Party as a whole. I doubt his race will be much of a factor; an assimilated Indian is about as close to an honorany Whiteman as you can get, especially if he's assimilated to the Southern White culture. He looks jus as White as Michael Dukakis, after all, and with a less foreign-sounding name.

[harjit]

He looks jus as White as Michael Dukakis, after all, and with a less foreign-sounding name.
I didn't think he looks all that white. Nigga may be browner than me.
http://www.uspaacc.com/uspac/publications/bobby_jindal.jpg

[Jake Featherston]

I didn't think he looks all that white. Nigga may be browner than me.
http://www.uspaacc.com/uspac/publications/bobby_jindal.jpg

His skin's kinda dark, but he still has that fundamentally Caucasoid cast of features. I think people go more by facial features than they do by skin color, even if the terms we use, often color-coded, tend to suggest otherwise. I'll grant he is dark enough to perhaps pick up a slightly increased portion of the Black vote, however, especially since a lot of Blacks are basically just herded into the polls by the people who sign their welfare checks (and this is more true in Louisiana than anywhere else in the USA), some may vote for Jindal due to their ignorant assumption he's Black (many have probably literally never heard of India, after all). But since their handlers will be telling them to vote for some Democrat, most will likely obey their orders, not clever enough to realize the secret ballot shields them from retaliation. I'm sure most Blacks believe all the ballots are numbered, and their local politicos can find out how they voted by checking a roster.